Swan by Natalie Crick

I scrub mouse blood from the floorboards

Imagining ice,

Imagining throats.

The dead stay dead.

A necked Swan

Sits disgraced,

The pale bone poking through, a

Sword rising from a lake

Sharp and still sheathed.

The bone is so white

I could have carved

It from wax,

Soft as bees,

A candle without a flame.

Forever Winter, the sky

Looks cold, pink as a clot

In the mouth

When the lights go out.

Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry that has been published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including The Chiron Review, Interpreters House, Ink in Thirds, Rust and Moth, The Penwood Review. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.